most reliable hardware

Hi,
I dont know much about hardwares. I have been using a new desktop that has core i7, with 32 gb of ram!! it works great!
however I need to get something new that is reliable. someone mentioned something about something called raid5 which has 5 discs and if one fails the other 4 keep all the data till you replace the 5th disc, and the data is always secure and will never get lost.
can someone explain where i can buy this? or is there something even better these days?
also how do i setup an automatic backup of the server everyday? do i need another server just to run that?

What I can tell from my experience is that you actually need a motherboard designed for server purposes. As a beginning they are designed to be more durable from operative point of view, they are engineered to run 24/7/365, they are constructed with much more expensive materials. However you could still use your desktop for server purposes but you should always have one in mind. Also the desktop motherboards 90% of them are with NON-ECC RAM slots (excl. the ones for graphic purposes) which is really needed if you wan't to exclude any server system crashes. Another thing is the possibility of having two or more CPU slots and two or more power supplies. Your desktop motherboard has a built-in software raid which you can enable and configure from your BIOS. You can also of course buy and install a RAID controller for your HDD's which actually is setting this RAID 5 array which isn't required to run with 5 HDD's, can also run with 4 or 3 HDD's. For better information I recommend you reading the article in wikipedia about the different levels of RAID - the diagrams could help you understanding this functionality:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_5
Long story short as your friend told you, it's saving you from a lot of troubles if you have a disk failure. (except in Raid 0)
The list of cons for the software raid however is too long to talk about.
The RAID Controllers can support different RAID Levels depending from the price so be careful if you wish to buy one. If you want to use safely and optimized RAID Array you should go for the external RAID controller card, they can vary from 50$ to 500$ and more.
So the answer to your final question is no you don't need another server to run RAID, but if you want to feel safe this is something you should consider. Getting an external RAID's one of the biggest pros is that in most cases they have external battery (in case of power failure) and RAM memory, so your HDD's could not break the data in your array if the power goes down, the battery finishes the writing of the records in the arrays, but the cons are that the battery and the memory are in most cases a little expensive but you buy them only once (if you are lucky).
Maybe you should define for what you need this configuration so someone could tell you the best choice of hardware configuration. Also I'm not really sure in your post what information you need most, which RAID is more reliable or which hardware is more reliable to use for server purposes?

wow thank you for all your information. really makes me understand how my thoughts of using a desktop is not at all correct.
so i am using the server to host odoo and ispconfig3.
odoo is my sales software, invoices, inventory etc... that information i can NOT have any loses at all. as that my income!
i host a website (ispconfig3) that allows my clients to login and place their wholesale orders which connects to odoo and then automatically generates sales quotations, invoices etc...
based on this info, what do you think would be the best hardware or configuration of raid that you would recommend?
thank you again for all your advise. its really a big help!

Well perhaps you could go with the desktop, I've started to play with server applications on a desktop myself years ago and I must admit that I had really few problems. I really felt that my systems are more reliable with the server components, but as I said, I managed to handle everything through the years with a desktop also. The servers are if you need to be durable from hardware point of view, they are just made for such purpose. If you are not that familiar with those things and you run about 100-500 clients daily with average traffic load maybe you could consider getting a VPS hosting. In this way you don't worry about any power/data/internet/hardware/memory/whatever you think about loss. In my opinion a server with about 8GB of RAM and 2-4 cores of CPU with 2GHz each could manage those 500 connected at the same time, of course if your bandwidth of the internet connection allows it. Just for comparison, with a 1.6GHz single core and 512 MB Ram with 5400RPM HDD & 50mbps non-dedicated line I've managed to handle about ~180 connections at the same time about 8 years ago. The problems with servers is that after that you start to worry if any component is going to die, or for the power supply, or maybe the internet could stop and etc. This is why im suggesting you the VPS option. I was hosting servers my self (I couldn't afford a colocation) since 2009, but recently it started getting really expensive to upgrade them.

This is why I'm suggesting you the VPS option. You should know really much less things if you go with that. It could be a little more expensive than buying a server, but it really depends from a lot of things.

My second suggestion is if you decide to stay on the desktop, consult someone you know about the best price<->durability manufacturer about the RAID external controllers for your country and also ask him if you can find in your country a redundant power supply.

On the other hand if something is working, just don't touch it if it can't get better with tiny changes - this is my logic for such things.

By the way I'm really curios how much is draining odoo from your RAM and CPU?

thank you for your reply.
i was thinking of a vps but its my invoices, payments etc... i want to have it in house and full control.
as for odoo taking resources, its running just fine. i have no issues. i dont know how much resources its taking nor how to check that. (sorry not very good at this stuff).
my main concern is to have it in house my own server but a setup that will never have a chance to lose any data such as raid 5 or something similar.
i dont have a need for much of anything else, other to have a very secure data that can never get lost by any chance, be it power loss or anything at all!

Okay I'll try to make it simple for you, I don't know what you tower case is, but it could be a bit hard to plug in the channel cables which transfer the data from the RAID controller to your HDD's. Another thing is that if you decide to make ANY raid level, you have to completely format all of the HDDs which are going to be included in the array. (the RAID configuration does that for you, so backup your data first and prepare for a day maintenance if everything goes well) So first of all choose your RAID controller which suites your available PCI slots, see what cables is it using and if they are simple SATA ports then you are fine to go to the next thing which is searching a good tower case which have enough space to place all the data cables and also a slot for 120/140mm FAN to cool the HDD's or SDD if you prefer. Perhaps I could help you on that one with pictures of my old guys.

This is my main computer cooling the HDDs with flow in and flow out with 140mm FANs on 3500 RPM (found them in Fujitsu server, they are really noisy but the case is cold as dead 24/7)

Also when setting up a raid, consider getting a UPS system at least in case of power loss.
Hope this helps setting up your new raid for the desktop. Also I know what you mean by full control, I was like that few months ago.

I migrated to VPS a month ago, because as I mentioned above, the expenses of upgrading and keeping the servers going were more than my income, also the risk of power loss or internet connectivity loss were bigger. Home environment needs more investments like firewall routers, ups, air conditioner & etc. About the cloud, I thought it's too expensive for the moment. So getting an OpenVZ VPS cost was like 220 euros for 2 years hosting for 2.5GB of RAM, 2vCores, 50GB of HDD and 75 mbps connectivity with unlimited bandwidth(2 IP addresses). My server had RAID 1 2x1TB HDDs, more memory and CPU's but I thought that until I reach the limit I won't upgrade the VPS.

Thank you again for all your help.
Is it possible on a regular desktop to connect a raid 1 or raid 5 external system to my desktop that i used as a server.
And if yes can you send me a link an such an ezternal raid controller?
Thx

This is a low budget one, just for an example what you are searching for. 4 internal ports, supports raid 0/1/10, but I wouldn't recommend to relay on that. Everything depends from your budget.
Something that could really help you is:http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Roc...d=1455060637&sr=1-11&keywords=raid controller
Again a low budget but with the specifications which you are searching for and supports up to 8 HDDs, but in this case you would have to find a mini SAS -> SATA cable. Also another criteria is to search for the right controller by your free PCI-E slots, this is very important. Search through amazon and newegg, ebay and etc. Define your budget there and give them a look so you can go familiar with what you are searching for.